A Hop Too Many

End of a South African saga

Tony Tomasello, killing some slow moments last week at the gas station he owns in Fort Lauderdale, came across a fascinating story in his local newspaper. It said that a brown-haired man stopped by police for running a red light in the affluent Florida city might just be a Jesse James-style bank robber whose mixture of bravado and courtesy had made him a folk hero in South Africa. The traffic violator had given his name as Peter Harris. Tomasello had sold a used orange Mustang to a Peter Harris less than two weeks earlier. When he looked up from his newspaper, Tomasello saw the car buyer in front of him. "Is this you?" Tomasello asked, pointing to the story. "Yes, that's me," the man replied. "I can't believe they caught up to me so quickly."

Any run-of-the-mill criminal would have fled Fort Lauderdale in a flash. Not Harris, who was in fact Andre Charles Stander, 36, a former top detective and police captain in South Africa. Son of a police major general, Stander had inexplicably taken to robbing banks. Found guilty of several heists in 1980, he and a fellow convict, Patrick McCall, 34, overpowered three prison guards last August, escaped, and later broke into another prison to free Allan Heyl, 31, a friend. The three quickly began knocking off banks, some 20 of them, as many as four in one day. As they hopped from bank to bank, they became known as "the Hopper Gang." Their net: an estimated $500,000.

Stander, skilled in disguises and schooled in police tactics, always spoke softly to terrified tellers. "If one can be polite when threatening someone else with a gun, Stander was," said one victim. Stander drove a yellow 1975 Porsche, rented three posh homes in suburban Johannesburg, and even when on the lam used to jog undetected amid police stakeouts.

Police learned of one of the gang's houses, raided it on Jan. 30, and killed McCall. Stander, who was not in the hideout, used phony identification and flew to Fort Lauderdale. South African police also seized a $200,000 yacht bought by the gang and scheduled to be delivered to Stander in the Florida city. Stander learned of the yacht's discovery from a newspaper story--the same one that betrayed him to Tomasello.

Joining a police stakeout in the neighborhood, Tomasello spotted Stander riding a bicycle. After a short chase, the cornered fugitive raised his arms and shouted, "I give up!" Then he seized Patrolman Michael Von Stetina's shotgun and pointed it at the officer. Von Stetina killed Stander with three pistol shots. Even South Africa's Minister of Justice seemed saddened by the demise of his erstwhile nemesis, sending condolences to Stander's family.

The South African public seemed disappointed too. Said an elderly Johannesburg woman: "We were all rooting for him. He had style."